The never-ending horse thread
I was thinking of a scenario where the owner of a longshot places a massive bet on his horse to show. The favorite is scratched, and the few horses don't allow show betting. His horse wins, but his bets get refunded.
Quote: billryanI meant the Belmont as he'd already crushed the first two legs of the Triple Crown.
I was thinking of a scenario where the owner of a longshot places a massive bet on his horse to show. The favorite is scratched, and the few horses don't allow show betting. His horse wins, but his bets get refunded.
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It looks like, in New York, if there are four horses, the track has the option to allow show betting or not.
Click on that link for a 16 page betting guide.
Good Luck
https://promos.drf.com/freepps#:~:text=Players%20will%20earn%201%20Past,yet%20a%20DRF%20Bets%20member%3F
It has a ‘Triple Crown’. Which a horse is eligible to compete for ONCE. As a 3 year old.
Sovereignty won the Derby. Now of course the only horse with a chance to win the Triple Crown. Except of course his owners are not racing him in the Preakness. You know, the horse that trains every day, with the best feed, the best veterinarians, the best trainers, the best jockeys,…. can’t be ready to run for two minutes after having a 14 day break after running fast for two minutes.
Apparently from 1997-2018 there were zero Derby winners who didn’t try for the Triple Crown. This reminds me of ‘load management’ in the NBA. Just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Quote: SOOPOOWhy horse racing is truly an afterthought….
It has a ‘Triple Crown’. Which a horse is eligible to compete for ONCE. As a 3 year old.
Sovereignty won the Derby. Now of course the only horse with a chance to win the Triple Crown. Except of course his owners are not racing him in the Preakness. You know, the horse that trains every day, with the best feed, the best veterinarians, the best trainers, the best jockeys,…. can’t be ready to run for two minutes after having a 14 day break after running fast for two minutes.
Apparently from 1997-2018 there were zero Derby winners who didn’t try for the Triple Crown. This reminds me of ‘load management’ in the NBA. Just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
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I say retire the horse and put it out to stud as the Derby winner. If it races again and doesn't perform well its stock will go down.
Quote: DRichQuote: SOOPOOWhy horse racing is truly an afterthought….
It has a ‘Triple Crown’. Which a horse is eligible to compete for ONCE. As a 3 year old.
Sovereignty won the Derby. Now of course the only horse with a chance to win the Triple Crown. Except of course his owners are not racing him in the Preakness. You know, the horse that trains every day, with the best feed, the best veterinarians, the best trainers, the best jockeys,…. can’t be ready to run for two minutes after having a 14 day break after running fast for two minutes.
Apparently from 1997-2018 there were zero Derby winners who didn’t try for the Triple Crown. This reminds me of ‘load management’ in the NBA. Just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
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I say retire the horse and put it out to stud as the Derby winner. If it races again and doesn't perform well its stock will go down.
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I'd sell three-quarters of the horse now and sit back.
Quote: SOOPOOWhy horse racing is truly an afterthought….
It has a ‘Triple Crown’. Which a horse is eligible to compete for ONCE. As a 3 year old.
Sovereignty won the Derby. Now of course the only horse with a chance to win the Triple Crown. Except of course his owners are not racing him in the Preakness. You know, the horse that trains every day, with the best feed, the best veterinarians, the best trainers, the best jockeys,…. can’t be ready to run for two minutes after having a 14 day break after running fast for two minutes.
Apparently from 1997-2018 there were zero Derby winners who didn’t try for the Triple Crown. This reminds me of ‘load management’ in the NBA. Just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
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One thing I wonder: if the Belmont was scheduled for 1 1/2 miles at Belmont Park and not 1 1/4 miles at Saratoga, would the decision have been different? A Triple Crown this year would have been more like a Triple Coronet; it's just not the same thing without the "Test of the Champion."
Quote: ThatDonGuyQuote: SOOPOOWhy horse racing is truly an afterthought….
It has a ‘Triple Crown’. Which a horse is eligible to compete for ONCE. As a 3 year old.
Sovereignty won the Derby. Now of course the only horse with a chance to win the Triple Crown. Except of course his owners are not racing him in the Preakness. You know, the horse that trains every day, with the best feed, the best veterinarians, the best trainers, the best jockeys,…. can’t be ready to run for two minutes after having a 14 day break after running fast for two minutes.
Apparently from 1997-2018 there were zero Derby winners who didn’t try for the Triple Crown. This reminds me of ‘load management’ in the NBA. Just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
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One thing I wonder: if the Belmont was scheduled for 1 1/2 miles at Belmont Park and not 1 1/4 miles at Saratoga, would the decision have been different? A Triple Crown this year would have been more like a Triple Coronet; it's just not the same thing without the "Test of the Champion."
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Doubt it would make a difference in their myopic thinking. The Triple Crown is the only thing the casual sports fan will give two hoots about. How much lower will the TV ratings be for the Preakness without the Derby winner? How much lower will the betting handle be?
Humans run 2 minutes in an 800 yard race, qualify for the finals, then run the same race two days later. These horse races are two minutes. I can’t believe the horses can’t be ready two weeks later.
Quote: SOOPOODoubt it would make a difference in their myopic thinking. The Triple Crown is the only thing the casual sports fan will give two hoots about. How much lower will the TV ratings be for the Preakness without the Derby winner? How much lower will the betting handle be?
Humans run 2 minutes in an 800 yard race, qualify for the finals, then run the same race two days later. These horse races are two minutes. I can’t believe the horses can’t be ready two weeks later.
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Horse racing has had this conversation before. In 1985, Derby winner Spend A Buck skipped the Preakness and the Belmont to try (successfully) to earn a $2 million bonus at the Jersey Derby. I am under the impression that this played a major part in the creation of the Triple Crown Challenge, which started as a $5 million bonus to any horse that could win the Triple Crown.
I have a feeling that any talk of moving the date of the Preakness will turn into talk of moving the location from Pimlico as well. We'll see how well that works next year, as the race is scheduled to be at Laurel Park while Pimlico is finishing its renovations.
Quote: SOOPOO
Humans run 2 minutes in an 800 yard race, qualify for the finals, then run the same race two days later.
it's not meaningful to compare horses to humans
human runners probably weigh an average of about 170 pounds
racehorses average about 1,100 pounds
and they run on very skinny legs
"the trainers of Derby horses that do run in the Preakness do it out of a sense of tradition - not because they like it" - said Trainer Bill Mott
"The debate has been raging for decades about horses not being able to handle the grind of three premier races over a span of five weeks. That was primarily because no one swept the Triple Crown between Affirmed in 1978 and American Pharoah in 2015, a 37-year drought that made industry stakeholders question tradition versus modern-day changes."
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/mo/kansas-city/ap-top-news/2025/05/07/no-kentucky-derby-winner-sovereignty-in-preakness-highlights-some-philosophical-horse-racing-changes
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The Triple Crown was created in 1950 and retroactively awarded to horses that fit the criteria. Before 1950, not every Derby winner competed in the next two legs, because they were not part of any organized trilogy.
From 1950 on, several horses had a chance to sweep after winning the first two races and didn't before Secretariat and then there were three in the next five years. There was talk of changing the races as suddenly it seemed too easy. A thirty-year gap, with numerous horses winning the first two but failing in the third, and Chase offering five million for a TC winner, added to the anticipation.
You know, because it is kind and humane to whip the horse 6 times, but brutal and inhumane to whip him 8 times.
Quote: SOOPOONot making this up. Derby winning jockey fined 20% of his winning share of the purse, $62k, for overwhipping Sovereignty. He whipped the horse 8 times during the race. Exceeding the allowed 6 whips by two! I’ve watched horse races for the past 6 decades (rarely..) but was never aware there ever was an exact number of acceptable whip applications.
You know, because it is kind and humane to whip the horse 6 times, but brutal and inhumane to whip him 8 times.
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A knowledgeable watcher of horse racing would know that the six-whip limit at Kentucky was introduced in 2020 after a spate of horse deaths sparked fury across America.Other jurisdictions have similar rules. https://lanesend.com/post-times/striking-balance-use-whip-horse-racing
I say get rid of the whip as encouragement entirely.
Quote: SOOPOONot making this up. Derby winning jockey fined 20% of his winning share of the purse, $62k, for overwhipping Sovereignty. He whipped the horse 8 times during the race. Exceeding the allowed 6 whips by two! I’ve watched horse races for the past 6 decades (rarely..) but was never aware there ever was an exact number of acceptable whip applications.
You know, because it is kind and humane to whip the horse 6 times, but brutal and inhumane to whip him 8 times.
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I read about that too. The horse was not really whipped at all because the rider doesn't have a whip. He has a crop. A jockey hitting a horse with a riding crop is like your grandmother hitting you with a cotton sock. If it does anything at all it's probably just a reminder to the horse that the race is still going on and to keep running. How else would a horse know he is still racing?
But it probably doesn't do anything at all because the Derby race times haven't changed significantly for 100 years, back when the horses would be struck with the crop nonstop. Or somebody did a study on this and determined the horse can remember he's supposed to run for 20 seconds so cropping more frequently than that doesn't do any good, and some people think it looks bad.
Quote: AutomaticMonkeyQuote: SOOPOONot making this up. Derby winning jockey fined 20% of his winning share of the purse, $62k, for overwhipping Sovereignty. He whipped the horse 8 times during the race. Exceeding the allowed 6 whips by two! I’ve watched horse races for the past 6 decades (rarely..) but was never aware there ever was an exact number of acceptable whip applications.
You know, because it is kind and humane to whip the horse 6 times, but brutal and inhumane to whip him 8 times.
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I read about that too. The horse was not really whipped at all because the rider doesn't have a whip. He has a crop. A jockey hitting a horse with a riding crop is like your grandmother hitting you with a cotton sock. If it does anything at all it's probably just a reminder to the horse that the race is still going on and to keep running. How else would a horse know he is still racing?
But it probably doesn't do anything at all because the Derby race times haven't changed significantly for 100 years, back when the horses would be struck with the crop nonstop. Or somebody did a study on this and determined the horse can remember he's supposed to run for 20 seconds so cropping more frequently than that doesn't do any good, and some people think it looks bad.
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Rules are rules, and you gotta follow the rules. He's a jockey and he's supposed to know and follow the rules.
Quote: GenoDRPhQuote: AutomaticMonkeyQuote: SOOPOONot making this up. Derby winning jockey fined 20% of his winning share of the purse, $62k, for overwhipping Sovereignty. He whipped the horse 8 times during the race. Exceeding the allowed 6 whips by two! I’ve watched horse races for the past 6 decades (rarely..) but was never aware there ever was an exact number of acceptable whip applications.
You know, because it is kind and humane to whip the horse 6 times, but brutal and inhumane to whip him 8 times.
link to original post
I read about that too. The horse was not really whipped at all because the rider doesn't have a whip. He has a crop. A jockey hitting a horse with a riding crop is like your grandmother hitting you with a cotton sock. If it does anything at all it's probably just a reminder to the horse that the race is still going on and to keep running. How else would a horse know he is still racing?
But it probably doesn't do anything at all because the Derby race times haven't changed significantly for 100 years, back when the horses would be struck with the crop nonstop. Or somebody did a study on this and determined the horse can remember he's supposed to run for 20 seconds so cropping more frequently than that doesn't do any good, and some people think it looks bad.
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Rules are rules, and you gotta follow the rules. He's a jockey and he's supposed to know and follow the rules.
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Agree on your point. My point is how silly that there is a rule defining an exact number of times a horse can be whipped. As a casual observer I am not privy to how much force can be exerted each whip? What materials can the ‘crop’ be made of? Is the horse trained in how to respond to being whipped?
A previous poster posited that whipping the horse should just be prohibited. Seems reasonable?
Posted solely for some who might have an actual interest, even if only slightly/casually:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1377245356542919 (3 minute instruction video on Facebook)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dzt3-wWNV8 (very brief 25 second YouTube description)
Which does not include the individual here who oddly continues to find ways to make more noise on the topic than anyone, for years now, but doesn't give a flying fork about it. ... [Rest of paragraph deleted by me because I'm sure it won't do any good.]
Quote: SOOPOOQuote: GenoDRPhQuote: AutomaticMonkeyQuote: SOOPOONot making this up. Derby winning jockey fined 20% of his winning share of the purse, $62k, for overwhipping Sovereignty. He whipped the horse 8 times during the race. Exceeding the allowed 6 whips by two! I’ve watched horse races for the past 6 decades (rarely..) but was never aware there ever was an exact number of acceptable whip applications.
You know, because it is kind and humane to whip the horse 6 times, but brutal and inhumane to whip him 8 times.
link to original post
I read about that too. The horse was not really whipped at all because the rider doesn't have a whip. He has a crop. A jockey hitting a horse with a riding crop is like your grandmother hitting you with a cotton sock. If it does anything at all it's probably just a reminder to the horse that the race is still going on and to keep running. How else would a horse know he is still racing?
But it probably doesn't do anything at all because the Derby race times haven't changed significantly for 100 years, back when the horses would be struck with the crop nonstop. Or somebody did a study on this and determined the horse can remember he's supposed to run for 20 seconds so cropping more frequently than that doesn't do any good, and some people think it looks bad.
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Rules are rules, and you gotta follow the rules. He's a jockey and he's supposed to know and follow the rules.
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Agree on your point. My point is how silly that there is a rule defining an exact number of times a horse can be whipped. As a casual observer I am not privy to how much force can be exerted each whip? What materials can the ‘crop’ be made of? Is the horse trained in how to respond to being whipped?
A previous poster posited that whipping the horse should just be prohibited. Seems reasonable?
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How many times do you need to be "encouraged" to do something before you get pissed off? How many times will you put up with being "encouraged" before you get a chance to respond?
The jockey not only hit him too many times, he hit him again before the horse could respond.
And, yes, the riders are limited to how they can strike a horse, and how crops are made. And I presume that part of the process in training a racehorse is training the noble beast how to respond to the crop.
I'm not aware of anyone who disagrees with the sanction (fine & suspension), other than Alvarado (the jockey), who has a peculiar habit of being clueless about this, and a determination to remain so. He has had a chronic problem with instructions & rules, including this one in particular, and has often been sure he's being unfairly picked on for no reason. In my experience, especially having been an employer, it's the kind of problem that isn't likely limited to matters involving horses, and doesn't readily respond to silly things like mere information & instruction.Quote: GenoDRPh...<preceding dialog snipped>...
How many times do you need to be "encouraged" to do something before you get pissed off? How many times will you put up with being "encouraged" before you get a chance to respond?
The jockey not only hit him too many times, he hit him again before the horse could respond.
And, yes, the riders are limited to how they can strike a horse, and how crops are made. And I presume that part of the process in training a racehorse is training the noble beast how to respond to the crop.
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Quote: GenoDRPhQuote: AutomaticMonkeyQuote: SOOPOONot making this up. Derby winning jockey fined 20% of his winning share of the purse, $62k, for overwhipping Sovereignty. He whipped the horse 8 times during the race. Exceeding the allowed 6 whips by two! I’ve watched horse races for the past 6 decades (rarely..) but was never aware there ever was an exact number of acceptable whip applications.
You know, because it is kind and humane to whip the horse 6 times, but brutal and inhumane to whip him 8 times.
link to original post
I read about that too. The horse was not really whipped at all because the rider doesn't have a whip. He has a crop. A jockey hitting a horse with a riding crop is like your grandmother hitting you with a cotton sock. If it does anything at all it's probably just a reminder to the horse that the race is still going on and to keep running. How else would a horse know he is still racing?
But it probably doesn't do anything at all because the Derby race times haven't changed significantly for 100 years, back when the horses would be struck with the crop nonstop. Or somebody did a study on this and determined the horse can remember he's supposed to run for 20 seconds so cropping more frequently than that doesn't do any good, and some people think it looks bad.
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Rules are rules, and you gotta follow the rules. He's a jockey and he's supposed to know and follow the rules.
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Oh no, I'm not challenging that he should be fined at all.
Just that it is a testimony to the efficacy of the crop that it is only a fine and not a disqualification. If he took the crop and started beating on one of the other jockeys during the race it would be a disqualification, but the fact that the authorities only fine him and don't disqualify him for overusing the crop on the horse suggests they don't believe it affects the outcome of the race. They treat it like he flipped the bird to the TV cameras: "Sure, you still win, but here's a fine for looking like a jerk."
The French philosopher Schopenhauer made an observation about this. He hated noise, and one of the noises he hated the most was a cracking whip. The carriage drivers then had actual whips, but they didn't whip the horse, they just cracked it over the horse, but he noted that some of them cracked the whip nonstop when they were driving. Whether the horse was supposed to be going fast or slow, didn't matter, they just cracked it for the sake of cracking it making the streets noisy. And even worse, after the driver stabled the horse and was walking home, sometimes he would crack his whip as he walked, with no horse at all. For self-expression? So he seemed to think it was a tic that horse drivers developed.
Quote: DrawingDeadThe riding crop is primarily a communication device in a cooperation between horse and rider
Then explain to me why they are limited to ‘communicating’ 6 times in a race?
You can’t.
Dude, I just did for chrissakes. Stated it plainly. But I knew it wasn't for your benefit; doesn't matter because of what you are determined to "know" along with the next dozen things you are going to cook up.Quote: SOOPOOQuote: DrawingDeadThe riding crop is primarily a communication device in a cooperation between horse and rider
Then explain to me why they are limited to ‘communicating’ 6 times in a race?
You can’t.
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ADD:
Duh.Quote: Me...looking weird, which is the reason for the rule.
Exactly, and well put. As explictly stated during the process of the adoption of the formal rule about it. And implicitly about pointlessly overfilling the feedbag for the world’s inevitable SooPoo trolls.Quote: AutomaticMonkey… a fine for looking like a jerk."
This is a never-ending horse!
